


Feeling Nerys

by Kahvi



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-14
Updated: 2013-05-14
Packaged: 2017-12-11 20:36:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/802992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Embedded in the collective consciousness  of the Link, Odo still loves Kira. And remembers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Feeling Nerys

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on ASCEML in 2004.

I feel the ocean that is myself absorbing information hungrily. Thirsting, we/they feed on it, the new/familiar mixture of sensation that is the Link providing us with everything we need. Almost everything.

I have been living with the solids for too long. I isolate myself from the part of us I still call ”they”, and ”they” do not understand why.  
All of us break free from time to time. Being a solitary being, enjoying different shapes and forms – all this is part of being a changeling. It is not unnatural. But I do it more often than most. Even in the warm, safe, chaotic paradise that is the Link, I still hold back. ”They” do not understand my solid-learned notion of ”privacy”. Yet they do not hold it against me. They tell me I am young, that I will outgrow these notions, and they tolerate what they regard as my childish whims.

I am afraid. I am afraid that when that happens – if that happens – if I finally surrender myself and all that is myself into the Link, I will forget about the pleasures of the flesh. I will forget the joys of solidhood. I do not fear forgetting my Nerys. I could never forget that  
I loved her, or how she loved me. But I fear I would forget why it mattered.

I remember trying to make one of us understand the concept of solid love. ”She” was in a female shape at the time, and I made love to her. It was indeed like making love, because at the time I was so filled with love of myself, of my kin, that it felt strangely like coming home. She did not understand. I saw it in her eyes even as I was shaping my body to fit hers and linking with her to show her how to meld to fit mine. She was amused. But she did not understand, not even when I linked with her. It almost angered me at the time that she did not understand about Nerys and me. Now I’m wondering whether I am the only changeling ever to feel this way. Or at least the first who wants to try to hold onto it. To that feeling, that state of mind.

I am a drop in this ocean. But I cured them all. Sometimes a drop is all it takes. I have one hope for myself, for keeping myself as I was and am. I will tell them about Nerys. I feel the ocean that is myself contract and expand in anticipation. They reach out across the Link, usurping the memories I willingly offer. And thus, the story is experienced/told.

I cannot remember when I fell in love with Nerys. It feels as though I have always loved her. But I remember meeting her for the first time. She was a young, strong resistance fighter and I was a tool of the Cardassian oppression. We both did things we regretted for the rest of our lives, but we did them because we felt we had to. And in this, we found mutual respect. After a while, there was true friendship. And after a while, I realized I loved her. The Link quivers. ”They” do not understand ”love”. I pause the flow of memories for a moment, and feel it to them. They stir and contract, confused. But they feel it. I ”smile” inwardly as my feelings of this time pulsate throughout the Link. The bafflement of the others of my kind amuses me somewhat. However, I bid them stifle their sensory questions and probing, and let me radiate and share the experience at my own pace. Reluctantly they agree. I relax, and assure them that in the end, they will understand. I hope that I am right. Again, the memories flow.

I share my years of working with Nerys, loving and admiring her from a distance. I feel the pride I felt for her, and the almost-comforting pain of my love. I share a walk I had with her late at night on the promenade, our arms almost touching as we strolled alongside one another, the warmth radiating from her skin. The stolen pleasure I gained from being near her, from seeing her happy. From having her smile at me.

I share my resigned acceptance of her lovers, and how I derived joy from seeing her happy. I re-feel those old feelings from back then, when I believed no humanoid could ever love me. Understand, I implore through the Link, how I was in those days. I did not know of my people. I was utterly and desperately alone, and so brutally, soberingly different from anyone else I had ever known. Back then, I felt it impossible for her to ever accept me as anything other than a friend. And so I watched as she took lovers, and finally, as she found Bareil, the man we both thought she would marry. I had reconciled myself to a life of loving her from afar, close, but never close enough. Then Bareil died.

After a time of grief during which my non-existent heart would almost break with the sorrow she felt, a wondrous thing began to happen. I felt it stirring within me as I do again now, sharing it with the Link. It was hope. I had believed for so long that I could not have her, but now, armed with the confidence of knowing who and what I was – for by then I had found my people – now things were different. I allowed yself to take delight in her in rather obvious ways. I tried to please her and look my best for her, and I allowed myself to dream. In some ways it was a wonderful time. It did not last.

A new lover came into her life, and finally I understood my folly. She could not love me, not because she found me ugly or too alien, but because she did not and could not understand me. I saw them courting, and was powerless to prevent their attraction. I had thought that, as friends, she and I could grow into lovers. He was a friend, and they grew into lovers… The irony was not lost on me. But she could not fall in love with me, because she did not see me as a man. She saw me as something other, a confidant, a sexless friend. Her sober, loyal Constable, who was always there. This part of the narrative pains me, as I remember stupidly standing watch outside her door even as they were consummating their relationship. Why did I torture myself so? Because I had been so close. Because the thought of loosing her now was more than I could take.

Finally, there was a choice to be made. I could not carry on hoping and hurting like this, neglecting my duties and slowly going mad. Either I could confront her, ask her to consider me and be done with it, or forget her. I chose the latter.

I feel the Link amuse itself at this thought. They ask me how I could possibly believe, even for one moment, that a solid could love me. They say that is impossible. I do not blame them. But they are wrong.

In the end, she loved me. At this point my narrative blurs, as my memories of this time are subtly intermixed with that of my alternate self – he who waited for Nerys through generations of solid lifetimes. He sacrificed a world for her, and it chilled her to the bone, but he also let her know that he – I - we – loved her. It took time, but in the end, she came to love me. Sometimes I think she always has – perhaps not as I have, for she did not see me in that way – but in another, gentler manner. She is surprisingly gentle, is my Nerys. My Nerys. The Link feels my overwhelming joy at this thought, and flexes its collective liquid muscle. I can feel them changing, contemplating. But there is more to relate.

I share our first kiss – the stares of people on the promenade, and our obliviousness to them. I feel the strange sensations that ran through me as our lips closed around one another, and the Link – enthralled – shape mouths in almost involuntary reaction. I share the loss of time, as we seemed to melt together as though we were linking with one another. Around me now in the Link, pairs of mouths meet, in probing question. The ocean of us is no longer calm – great waves of us are falling on the few shores of our planet, throwing ourselves around ourselves in a frenzy of newly discovered sensation. “More” they implore me, “more!” I remain on the edges of this, gently dissuading those who try to pull me along. And I tell them no more.

I could have shared my first time of making love with Nerys. How our bodies intertwined until we seemed to be one person. The newness of it all, with her, exploring her body and finding the shapes which pleased her most. How hard it was to hold any shape at all, in the end, when sensation completely took over. But I refrain from feeling any of this. Some things are not to be shared. Such words from a changeling! No wonder they think me strange.

Slowly I move even further away from the chaos, gently disentangling myself from those around me, as I relay the essence which I call “myself” towards a shore. Movement becomes ever harder as our/my feelings intensify – it becomes harder and harder to individualize. And yet there is a striking difference: I understand this. I know what they crave. I have tasted it. The rest of me lets me go, and I emerge from myself, standing once more on solid ground. There is sand under my feet. I form toes to curl in it. A breeze is blowing.

I turn around, and look towards the ocean that is no longer myself, with newly formed eyes. I feel at peace. I know they will do the right thing now, no matter what they decide. No matter what happens. They will do what is best for Nerys. As the ocean rocks back and forth in agony, my finely detailed mouth shapes into a smile. Ah yes.

They love her too now.


End file.
